Recent news releases

A new bistro, situated on The Seven Sisters Vineyard, has opened in Stellenbosh. The Village Bistro draws inspiration from the roots and heritage of the seven sisters (and one brother) who own The Seven Sisters farm. The new eatery offers a taste of the Cape West Coast in the heart of the Winelands. We’re talking authentic, robust, hearty and wholesome meals accompanied by the fine wines cultivated on The Seven Sisters vineyard.

If you're travelling to South Africa soon, The Village Bistro is the ideal spot to experience South African hospitality at its best. Find out more about The Village Bistro here.

Come and enjoy…. Cape Town and the Western Cape are open for business in spite of the current drought.

Visitors are arriving in a place with a significant breadth and depth of experiences, and exceptional beauty. However, as beautiful as it is, the Western Cape is a water-scarce part of the world (much like other successful tourist regions like Southern California and Western Australia) and is vulnerable to the effects of climate change and susceptible to periodic droughts.

At present the Western Cape is experiencing a significant drought. This is a one in 1000-year occurrence. To counter the short-term effects of the drought, the City has put in place a number of initiatives to increase the supply of water and make provision for extreme water shortages. There are still many places across the Western Cape that are not as severely affected by the drought such as the nearby Garden Route and the Cape Overberg. …but be mindful.

A new online retailer, Vino Pronto, has launched to offer an exclusively South African range of wines, delivered directly to your doorstep.

Vino Pronto is the brainchild of Richard Kilian who runs the UK side of the business and Luke Hirst who has his eyes and ears in Cape Town, working directly with many of the wine-makers they represent.

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Last year I caught the winemaking bug. I was invited out to spend time in the cellars of four of the leading producers in Elgin, South Africa's coolest-climate wine region, which is currently a bit of a hotspot. In particular, Elgin is turning out some very fine Chardonnay. The brief experience of being in these cellars meant that when Peter-Allan Finlayson (of Crystallum and Gabrielskloof) invited me to spend some time at his place during vintage, I immediately cleared some time in my diary, and booked flights.

I fell in love with South Africa and the wines a few years ago. The recent MasterChef UK final took me right back to a holiday I had there. They went to the same Game Reserve that we stayed at and we also went to Reuben Riffel's restaurant in Franschhoek the night before my friends wedding - it was great to see Reuben as a guest judge too! Watching that episode seemed like the perfect excuse to open this beautiful bottle of Semillon from Boekenhoutskloof. What a delicious wine!